This is my journey of personal growth and discovery as a single father of two daughters, now 40 years old :)

Jul 14, 2017

The Power of Self Awareness

One of the most important things someone can learn is self awareness. This is the ability to know yourself — what you believe, what fears you have, what you will respond to positively, what you will respond to negatively, etc. It’s being able to see yourself EXACTLY as you are without any delusion of the truth.

I was having a conversation with someone last night talking about this. I mentioned that I am generally very passive and I’m working on being more assertive. I mentioned what situations cause me stress, anxiety, and being stuck in my head. It was a very good conversation. After it, I realized that I have A LOT of things that I am both aware of and working on!

It can be hard to be really self aware. It means owning up to the stuff that may be negative to us. I mean, who really wants to admit they are afraid, insecure, have emotional and mental stress (or whatever else it may be)? But the power of doing so is that you have a place to recognize and honor yourself from. This then gives you the capacity to ask, “How can I improve or do better?”

Real self awareness paves the way for improving and getting better. I’ve managed scrum teams at the company I work for. This means I help manage the team, what they are working on, and making sure that they have everything they need to do their work well. The #1 thing that makes this process work is for there to be a high level of self awareness. It’s documenting what the things are that make things difficult and that we’d like to improve on.

If you need additional help with self awareness, ask a good friend who won’t hide the truth from you. Let them see you in ways you may not be able to see yourself. Own it as part of who you are!

What’s one thing about yourself you’ve been hiding from? How might your life change if you recognized it and honored it as part of who you are?